A blog devoted to astronomy / astrophysics and space missions

ESA

ESA has published some images of a crater with more than 30 kilometers (about 20 miles) across north of the large Hellas Planitia basin on the planet Mars obtained thanks to the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) instrument of the Mars Express space probe. The appearance of the crater along with the river valleys to the south indicates that at the time of impact there was groundwater near the surface. This is another indication that there was a lake in that region.

NASA has confirmed that it has lost contact with the Cassini space probe, which until the last moment was sending information as it descended into the atmosphere of the planet Saturn and went to its destruction. It’s the end of the Cassini-Huygens mission, a collaboration between NASA, ESA and ASI (Italian Space Agency), one of the most extraordinary space missions in history.

ESA has released some photos taken by its Mars Express space probe showing an area of ​​the Thaumasia mountains and Coracis Fossae on Mars. This area is south of the gigantic canyon system called Valles Marineris and of Tharsis volcanoes and shows traces of the activity that led to their formation more than 3.5 billion years ago. The result is a variety of features with mountains and graben.

A few hours ago the Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and after about six hours reached the International Space Station with the three new crew members Paolo Nespoli, Randy Bresnik and Sergey Ryazanski on board. The Soyuz used the fast track, used again after the introduction of this spacecraft’s new version.

ESA has published images of the area of the planet Mars known as Libya Montes taken by its Mars Express space probe. It’s a mountain range near the Martian equator and is one of the oldest in Mars, altered by volcanic processes and impacts but also by processes associated with the existence of rivers. In the pictures it’s possible to identify various channels and valleys, traces of the ancient water streams.